


Going Home

by LanaSerra



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Afterlife, Canon-Typical Violence, Drinking, F/M, Feels, Fluff, Gambling, M/M, Post-Series, Pre-Season 13, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 11:04:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16196249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LanaSerra/pseuds/LanaSerra
Summary: “Hey Sammy, wanna grab a drink?”“Sure,” Sam said with a smile as he turned to face him. “I think there’s a place up ahead.” He hesitated briefly “ It would be good to see…”“Yeah.” Dean breathed. “It would.”They had killed Lucifer. And the price had been high. Very high.Sam smiled back at him. Relieved.The price was worth it.





	Going Home

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone, 
> 
> I've been a fandom lurker for close to twenty years now, but it wasn't until I found the SPN Family that I felt the need to really participate and become involved. And I'm so glad that I did. While this is not my first fic, (no matter what AO3 says!), nor the longest (250k!), this is the first one I've really publically shared online. And I have [Spandwiches](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spandwiches/pseuds/spandwiches) to thank for that push. Without her encouragement, this never would have happened~
> 
> I wrote this back a couple weeks before the start of Season 13.

 

 

Dean tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as the road opened up in front of him. A warm summer breeze floated through the open window, bringing the familiar smells of asphalt, grass and goldenrods. Goldenrods? Nebraska, right. It was the perfect temperature, not hot enough to be uncomfortable, but not cold enough to need a jacket either. Dean loved this time of year.

Dean glanced over at his brother, sitting comfortably in the passenger seat. For once he didn’t seem anxious, bored or irritated. He seemed content, watching the fields pass by. Dean smiled. They had really earned this moment. That last hunt had been a rough one. Really rough.

Dean reached over and turned on the radio, and was greeted by the first few bars of Kansas. Great song. Dean hummed along. He side-eyed his brother again. Maybe it was time.

“Hey Sammy, wanna grab a drink?”

“Sure,” Sam said with a smile as he turned to face him. “I think there’s a place up ahead.” He hesitated briefly “ It would be good to see…”

“Yeah.” Dean breathed. “It would.”

They had killed Lucifer. And the price had been high. Very high.

Sam smiled back at him. Relieved.

The price was worth it.

Sooner than he thought possible, Dean pulled into the parking lot of the Roadhouse. They both got out of the Impala, Sam moving eagerly toward the entrance, while Dean hesitated, placing a hand on Baby’s roof while he breathed deeply. He stared inside their once-home. He could do this. Willing himself to move away from his beloved car, Dean followed his brother into the building that no longer existed.

The cheers were thunderous when they stepped inside. Here were his friends and family. Here were his dead.

Charlie was the first to him, launching herself into his arms, hugging him tightly “Where you been Handmaiden?” Dean wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “Sorry My Queen, I had some… errands to run”  
“Yeah you did! There you go saving the world again!” Charlie crowed with a grin. Everyone laughed and cheered. Dean smiled down at her before letting go so she could hug Sam too. “So what...I guess it’s all pay per view up here now?” Everyone laughed as Sam’s monster frame enveloped Charlie in a hug.

“Let's just say there’s been a slight change to management” Ash chuckled, sitting next to Kevin at the bar. “You could say they kind of owed us” the prophet continued with a smirk. Dean strode across the room to give Kevin a hug. “They sure as fuck did kid.”

“yeah yeah” Kevin rolled his eyes and pushed Dean away from him, but he couldn’t hide his smile nearly as well as he thought he did. Linda Tran nodded to Dean from behind her son. “Very good.”

Ellen was misty-eyed from her place behind the bar, but her voice was steady and strong “What’ll it be boys?”

“Whiskey” Dean responded automatically with a grin and a wink at Jo who was sitting on his other side. She grinned back at him. “Whatever you have Ellen, thanks” Sam replied easily as he strode up to the bar. Jo got out of her seat to hug Dean.

“Hey” he mumbled and hugged her back. “I’m so-”

“Nope. We’re not doing that Winchester” Jo cut him off and she released her hold. He nodded. Fair enough.

Ellen put the glass of whiskey down on the bar just in time for Dean to hear Sam whisper “Jess” beside him. Dean closed his eyes, Fuck. He took a deep breath before he opened his eyes sharing a look with Ellen before he picked up his glass and downed it. The golden liquid tasted heady and rich, but it didn’t burn the same when it went down. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she shrugged and poured him another. Dean took another sip before he turned to look at Jessica Moore standing behind him, flanked by his parents.

He was going to need another drink.

Sam was clinging to Jessica, grief all over his face. Dean looked over at his parents. They were watching Sam, their faces tight with worry. His mother was just as he had seen her last, strong and fierce, fighting and dying at her boy’s side in the fight against Lucifer. He sought out his father’s eyes. John was not how he remembered. He stood straight and tall, the weight of his grief and his anger, lifted from his shoulders; The lines around his eyes no longer filled with hate. Maybe heaven was good for something after all.

Dean had seen and done a lot of things since his father had died, or rather since he’d seen him last. Fuck their lives. Dean wasn’t his father’s son any longer. Who knew if John would even like the man Dean had become. There certainly wasn’t a girl waiting for him at the Roadhouse like there was for Sam. Dean stepped past his brother and pulled Mary into a silent hug. She wrapped her arms around him.

“You did good.” John Winchester rumbled and clapped a hand on Dean’s shoulder. Dean nodded and locked eyes with his father. There would be time, later.

Sam shifted beside him and Dean let his mother go.

“Hey Mom. Dad.” Sam said easily, but there was pain in his eyes. Dean took a good look at Jessica, curled up against his brother’s side. Man she looked young.

“Hey Jessica.”

“Hello Dean”

Dean pushed past the gutted feeling and caught Sam’s eye. Sam shrugged and smiled back at him, briefly letting Jessica go to hug their parents. Once he let go, Dean tilted his head towards another table. Sam followed his line of sight and a brilliant smile bloomed across his face. Eileen waved at him from across the room. Make that two girls waiting for him. Sam signed ‘hello’ excitedly and she grinned back at him before getting up and coming over to give him a hug. Sam’s whole frame relaxed as they embraced. Huh. Sam smiled at Dean from over Eileen’s shoulder before glancing back at Jessica. Ouch. Dean wasn’t going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. That third glass of whiskey was sounding better and better. Dean shrugged as if saying “not my problem dude”. Sam sent a bitchface back at him before turning back to the two women.

“There you are boy” Bobby’s gruff voice said from behind him. Thank Chuck. Then again, Chuck could fuck right off after the mess he’d left them.

“Hey Bobby. You harassing these fine people?” Dean said with a grin as he turned to look at his surrogate father and his wife.

“Knew you idjits would make it up here eventually.” Bobby’s eyes were misty.

“Yeah,” Dean said, rubbing his hand behind his head. “Uhh…Sorry we kept you?”

“Don’t be daft,” Bobby said before looking around. “Where’s that Angel o’ yours?”

“Uh..” Cas. Castiel. He wasn’t here. He wasn’t ever going to be here. He was locked out of heaven. Dean closed his eyes briefly. He remembered catching Cas’s eyes at the end, smiling and marvelling at the beautiful hurricane of deadly intent that was Castiel, Angel of the Lord. He had smiled back at Dean before his eyes had gone wide with shock and despair when Dean’s legs had buckled under the weight of the mortal wound he had suffered at the cost of the win. No matter how quickly Cas had cut down and smited his way through the hoards around them, he wouldn’t make it to Dean’s side before he died, and in that moment, they had both known it. Dean had smiled anyways. He could still hear Cas shouting his name.

“Leave him be Bobby,” Karen said as Dean muttered some excuse to go back to the bar for another drink. He might not be able to get drunk in heaven, but he sure as fuck was going to try. He felt Sam, Mary and John’s eyes on his back as he went.

****

A couple of hours passed, or was it days? or weeks even? Nothing had changed since the brothers had arrived. The light pooling in the bar windows never grew, shifted or changed; there was no sense of time, no forward motion. After what felt like an endless stretch of story-telling, laughing, drinking and the occasional reminiscent tear, Dean realized for the first time in his weird life he was surrounded by his family and friends, free from obligation and the family business, and yet the sucking, aching void inside had not gone away. The world had been saved, the Winchesters were given their due in Heaven, and Sam was happy.

_It was not enough._

Dean found himself glancing at the door more and more, willing it to open. Pamela’s hand came down gently on his elbow, breaking his gaze.

“We fixed it so the Roadhouse could be here for everyone, but that doesn’t mean your heaven doesn’t still exist… You could go jump in that car of yours and I’m sure the road would take you there.” She smiled kindly at him, her now vibrant green eyes boring into his own. It was a relief to see her staring back at him without the damage Cas had caused so long ago. “You could go home…if you wanted.”

He wanted to object, to rally that home was wherever Sam was. But that was no longer true. Sam had become his own person, and no longer needed Dean to watch over him. Sam was home here. He could see the years of pain, stress and suffering falling off of his brother the longer he stayed. “Thanks” He replied without heat. Where was home if not with Sam - sure he could probably find the bunker, but it wouldn’t be home without… Even more than that, he couldn’t imagine sitting through his greatest memories on loop knowing the people at his side were just facsimiles of the real thing.

“Don’t mention it.” she patted his arm again before moving off to the side, letting John slide into her place.

Dean glanced at his father before turning back to his drink.

“You’re not happy,” John said.

“That was never a requirement was it” Dean replied dryly.

John shifted from foot to foot awkwardly.  
“Look Dean, I wanted to say that uh I umm…”

“Nope. Not interested. What’s done is done.” Dean cut in picking up his drink and moving to go sit with Charlie and Kevin.

***** 

Dean was losing at poker. He never lost at cards, but he kept zoning out watching the front door instead of paying attention to what everyone was doing.

“Ha! I win again!” Charlie crowed.  
“Only because Dean isn’t really playing” Kevin responded, eyeing his own meagre stack of chips.  
“I think you mean only because I’m not playing,” Linda Tran said, standing behind her son. Kevin gulped and nodded. Jo laughed. I think my Mom could give yours a run for her money.  
“Joanna Beth! What you saying about me?” Ellen called from the bar.  
“Only that you could kick all of their asses at poker!” Jo laughed back.  
“Well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint!” Ellen said as she came to sit down beside her daughter. “Deal me in”  
“Me too.” Linda Tran said.

Dean folded his cards down. “I’m out.”

“If there’s anyone who could be unhappy in heaven it’d be you Winchester.” snarked Jo as they gathered up his cards.

Dean grimaced and got up. He wasn’t built for happy. He was built to serve, to protect, to fight…. and now he was staring down his eternal afterlife without those things...without his angel by his side. Happy. Right. “I’m going for a drive.” he said pointedly ignoring the looks flashing across the table.

He caught Sam’s eye and headed for the door. Sam looked at him curiously before smiled sadly and nodded. “Later…Jerk.” At least Sam understood.

“Bitch.” he responded but without his usual fervour. He refused to look at the multitude of eyes following him as he crossed the room. He couldn’t deal with their disappointment, not again. At least no one was actively trying to stop him from leaving.

As he turned away towards the door, Dean could hear the muttered whispers spring up behind him.

“Where’s he going?”

“Home, to find Castiel of course” Charlie had always known.

“The Angel? Did he die too?” The voices drifted away as Dean stepped through the door. “Where do Angels go when they die?”

*****

Dean relaxed into the front seat of his baby, letting the familiar feelings and smells of his beloved car soothe him. Back on the road, Dean started feeling better. He let his tires eat up the miles and his stress until he felt like he could breathe again. He turned the radio back on, and that Kansas song he liked so much was playing again. He didn’t even get all the way through it before he was pulling up to the entrance of the bunker. Ah, Heaven physics.

Dean pulled baby into the garage, smiling when he saw Cas’s continental sitting in its spot, he hadn’t seen it in quite some time. He didn’t know where Cas had picked up the truck but it had never grown on him quite the way the ugly pimpmobile had. Dean hesitated at the door to the bunker, his hand on the handle. Would there be reflections of his past walking around? Shades of the people he had left at the Roadhouse? A familiar tan trench coat?

“Sammy!” Dean called out as he stepped over the threshold and waited. His voice echoed down the corridors but there was no returned greeting. The lights and heat were on at least. Dean headed for the kitchen.

The last room at the end of the hall had been Kevin’s. The prophet had chosen the one furthest away from the brothers.

Dean stood gaping at Kevin’s room, his bed covered in paper, snack wrappers, laptop and earphones. There were clothes littered all over the floor. Dean could practically smell the unwashed teenager. He grinned as he leaned against the doorframe. It was like Kevin had never left, never died, never had his things packed up and put away. Dean took a deep breath and glanced down the rest of the hallway. All of the other doors were open. He pushed off Kevin’s door and moved down the hallway to be greeted by Charlie’s room, sitting exactly as it had been the last time she visited. Her bed covered with a vibrant throw with some red-headed elf-chick on it and her earphones sitting on her side table. His mother’s meagre belongings were sitting neatly on the bed in her room, right beside some of his father’s things. White noise took over as Dean stared at the bed. John had never visited the bunker, had never seen it, had never even known about it. And yet here were his things, right next to Mary’s in her room, their room? in the bunker, in Dean’s home.

Dean didn’t know how long he stood there staring at his parent’s bed before he managed to pull himself away. He checked the rest of the rooms and found places for everyone who had been at the roadhouse. This was his heaven? A bunch of empty rooms reminding him of everyone he loved? Dean shook his head. Chuck couldn’t be that mean… 

He stopped outside of Cas’s room, unable to look away. A curl of warmth wrapped around his belly at the sight of the well-worn trench coat on the back of the chair, the blue striped tie sitting on top of it. There were a few nicknacks around the room, but otherwise, it still felt fairly utilitarian. The bed was neat and orderly, but Cas had never really stayed there while he was human or an angel for that matter. Not for any real length of time anyways. The warmth was quickly replaced with a sharp pain of regret. Dean winced before reaching for the door to hide the room’s contents from his view. He froze as a small object on Cas’s bedside table caught his eye. He knew without looking what the tape’s label would say. Dean coughed and cleared his throat, trying to push past the burning behind his eyes. He took a step into the room reaching for it before he stopped and pulled away again. It was just an empty room. Filled with the shadows of his family. That’s it.

Dean didn’t bother checking his room or Sam’s. There wasn’t anything in there that he wouldn’t have seen already. He finally made his way into the kitchen, happy to find it clean, and after opening the fridge, well stocked. He grabbed a beer and leaned up against the counter.

“So this is my heaven then Chuck?” Dean muttered angrily as he twisted off the cap “A bunch of empty rooms and a six pack? That’s the going rate for stopping multiple apocalypses these days?” The oven, that he _knew_ had been cold and off only seconds before, suddenly pinged. Dean grabbed oven mitts and pulled a beautiful freshly baked rhubarb pie from the oven. He dropped it on the cooktop in disgust. “Fuck you”

Dean turned away from the pie and the now sweet-smelling kitchen and made his way toward the map room. Halfway down the hall he stopped, turned around and went back to the kitchen to cut himself a piece of pie. “Don’t read into it” he muttered, “I’m just not stupid enough to waste fresh pie.” He took a bite and rolled his eyes. Delicious, naturally. Back in the map room, Dean sat down and put his feet up on the table, just shy of the initials him and Sam had carved into it.

Dean had zoned out when he heard the rustle of feathers. he looked up to see Castiel standing on the other side of the table. He was wind-blown and rumpled, with cuts and dirt on his face while his clothing seemed to be holding on by mere threads. But his eyes were blue and clear and warm, and Dean had never seen anything more beautiful.

“Cas” Dean said, surprised by the rough timbre of his own voice as if he hadn’t used it for a long time.

“Hello Dean”

Dean was up out of his chair and across the room before he could even think, reaching out for his angel. Dean crushed Castiel into a hug, clinging desperately and hiding his face against Castiel’s shoulder. “Please…. please tell me you’re real, I can’t. I … Tell me you’re not a …manifestation or a figment or something.. I just …please, please Cas. Tell me that you’re real.”

Dean felt the angel relax into his hold and wrap his arms tightly around the hunter. “I’m real. I promise Dean.” Dean nodded into his shoulder and held on tight. They stood that way for a long time.

Finally, Dean pulled back to look into Castiel’s eyes. “What happened? How …are you here?”

Castiel smiled back at him with that small almost-there smile that he reserved for Dean alone.

“After you…” Castiel paused, a flash of pain crossing his face before he continued “felled Lucifer. I used my remaining grace in order to cleanse the field of the remaining demonic forces with a rapid and extreme release of energy.”  
Dean chewed on that for a moment.  
“You exploded.”  
“I exploded” Castiel agreed.  
Dean shook his head with a huff of a laugh and touched his forehead to Castiel’s. “Fuckin’ Dumbass Angel, Learned self-sacrifice from the best though so I can’t really complain.”  
“Dean” Castiel chided.  
Dean closed his eyes and nodded. “So what about the whole” Dean pulled back to gesture at the room/heaven at large “How are you even here?”  
“My father met me in the empty and gave me a choice.”  
“Ah, so Chuck’s actually around this time? Helping out even? That’s new.”  
“Dean”  
“Right sorry, continue.”  
“He… he said he was proud of me.” Castiel looked at Dean with such awe that it was all Dean could do to smile back at him.  
“Damn right.”  
“He said that as the first of his children to accept and promote Free Will that I would be given a choice. That I could fade into the ether and be free from all constraints and responsibilities as countless of my siblings have done before me, or I could be restored to earth to continue my mission to watch over humanity, or I could be restored as a human to heaven… to walk with you.”

“And you chose me?” Dean said, stunned. Once again Castiel had thrown away his chance to live forever as his all-powerful celestial self or to rest peacefully with the other angels.  
“I will always choose you Dean.” Castiel said seriously his gaze unwavering. Dean had known for a long time that Cas was it for him, but he was still floored every time the angel declared his devotion for the middle-aged hunter.

Dean wasn’t sure who moved first but then they were kissing, soft, comforting, and warm. Each reassuring the other that they were hale and whole and there. It wasn’t the first time that they had kissed, but it was the first time there was hope and the promise of a future.

 

****

They had been collecting the last of the remaining items for the fight when Dean had pulled Cas aside in a dark hallway of the bunker. Cas was armed to the teeth and reminded Dean of how he had looked in that alternative future that had never come to pass. Except here they were again, running straight into a suicide mission to kill Lucifer.  
“Cas…I” Dean said, his voice gruff,  
Cas tilted his head and looked at Dean for a moment, searching the hunter’s face before nodding “It’s ok Dean, I know.” The corners of his mouth turning up ever so slightly. He reached out and rested his hand on Dean’s arm, close to where he had left his mark all those years ago.  
A moment’s hesitation before Dean had leaned in and kissed him. It wasn’t demanding or passionate. Just a simple acknowledgement of what they had both known to be true for a long time. When Dean pulled away they looked at each other with sad resignation, acceptance and then determination.  
“Let's go kill Lucifer..”

***

 

When Dean pulled back from this kiss, however, he smiled. Now they had all the time in the world. Cas smiled brilliantly back at him.

“I can’t wait to show you around, there is a place for everyone here!” Dean grinned. It probably wouldn’t take much convincing to get his family to move to the bunker with him. With them. But that could wait.

“Thanks, Chuck.” he murmured as he pulled Cas back in for a hungrier kiss, slipping his tongue past the angel’s lips.

“You’re welcome Dean.” a voice cut in, jolting the two men apart. “Just try not to thank me again while you’re banging my son ok?” Chuck said with a laugh, sitting with his feet up at the table behind them.

Dean flushed to the tips of his ears while Cas smiled warmly at him before taking his hand. “I’m always telling him not to Blaspheme,” he told his father without looking away from the Righteous man. “But I might be willing to make an exception.”

**Author's Note:**

> My take on how the series could end. The boys would get to put their burden down, and spend the afterlife surrounded by the people they love~
> 
> Come visit me on [Tumblr](http://lanaserra.tumblr.com/)! You can also find me on the Profound Bond Discord Server.


End file.
